Harold Standish
Canadian | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = high school dropout; some university | alma_mater = University of Toronto | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = The Golden Time, The Lake of Souls | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | website = | portaldisp = }} Harold Edwin Standish (September 24, 1919 - April 15, 1972) was a Canadian poet and novelist, best known for his 1949 novel The Golden Time and his 1957 long poem The Lake of Souls. Life Overview A significant Canadian modernist along with the likes of Earle Birney, Douglas LePan, and Sheila Watson, Standish was known for both his experiments with literary form and his skeptical view of Canadian nationalism at a time, during the 1950s and 1960s, when many Canadians sought to establish a distinctive literary tradition for Canada.Scott, 3 Largely forgotten in recent years, his work remains significant for its vivid evocations of working class life in rural Southern Ontario. Youth Standish was born in Toronto, but shortly thereafter moved with his family to Chatham, Ontario. In an autobiographical essay in A View From the Edge (1971), Standish describes how his alcoholic father beat him and his 3 brothers mercilessly, leaving life-long psychological wounds that found expression in many of Standish's poems. After leaving high school at age 14, Standish worked as an apprentice to a millwright, before setting off on a cross-Canada excursion by train in 1937.Scott, 15; McKenzie, 119 Career Settling in Vancouver for a time, Standish had trouble finding employment because of the lingering Great Depression. A voracious reader since childhood, Standish began writing poetry in his teens but did not consider it a serious pursuit until after a chance meeting with the young Earle Birney in Vancouver.Scott, 14 Birney encouraged Standish to write more intensely and introduced him to the work of Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and other writers that came to influence Standish's work. Returning to Ontario after the outbreak of World War II, he attempted to enlist for overseas service but was rejected because of a heart murmur.Viger, 55 Standish instead spent the early years of the war working on tobacco farms in the area around Lake Erie, an experience that would later influence the setting of his novel, The Golden Time. While working as a laborer in Ontario, Standish kept copious drafts of poems and notes for short stories, but lack of formal education prevented him from developing the distinctive style he sought.Scott, 26 In 1943, Standish moved back to his birthplace of Toronto, where he enrolled in English literature courses at the University of Toronto while writing and working at a variety of temporary jobs. A number of Standish's poems appeared in such little magazines as Contemporary Verse and Northern Review,Archives of Contemporary Verse and Northern Review are available at Library and Archives Canada, and various university libraries in Canada. and he released his debut collection, a self-financed mimeographed chapbook entitled Stripped Bare in the Afterlife in 1943. Despite the chapbook having sold a mere 60 copies,McKenzie, 119 Standish managed to land a publishing agreement with the tiny imprint Bluenose Books for the release of his debutt full-length collection, Neighbours, and other poems (1944). Several other collections followed over the next 2 decades. By the late 1940s, Standish had added fiction to his creative pursuits. His debut novel, The Golden Time, published by Macmillan in 1949, sold well and won glowing reviews. The 1950s were Standish's most productive period, with another novel and several more poetry collections appearing to growing acclaim (but poor sales).Scott, 114. Standish blamed the poor reception of his work on the critical establishment, citing its tendency to "credit false authority with its assessments of what is valid and not valid in the literature of this country." Standish, qtd. in Viger, 57. After a short period as a full-time, professional author, Standish found it necessary to supplement his income with work as a copy-editor and laborer. Standish continued to write and publish throughout the 1960s, however, including essays for various Canadian and American periodicals that were later collected in A View From the Edge. Decline and death Standish was stricken with liver disease in the mid-1960s, and was increasingly confined to hospitals and long periods at his home outside Toronto.Scott, 154; McKenzie, 130. His wife, Marilla Standish, assisted him in preparing his manuscripts for publication, but eventually Standish's health declined even further as his heart began to deteriorate. The latter condition inspired the ironic title of his final book of new poetry, A Crisis at Heart (1970, published in Europe as Autumn Moon).Scott, 154 Shortly before his death he chose the poems for his Selected Poems. Recognition In the introduction to his Selected Poems, Miriam Waddington claimed that Standish was "a voice destined to last in Canadian literature."Waddington, xii. Scott quotes George Woodcock making a comparable statement, defending his work against several earlier critics: "Some have called Standish's work a sham, but any astute reader will recognize his work for what it really is--a revelation about what we know, and think we know, about Canadian literature." Scott, 156. Sadly, since his death in 1972, his work has been to a large degree forgotten. To date, none of Standish's original works has been reprinted,Scott, 185 although a final selection of poems and essays, Harold Standish: A retrospective, appeared in 1976. Publications Poetry *''Stripped Bare in the Afterlife'' (chapbook, 1943) *''Neighbours, and other poems'' (1944) *''The Forest of Fear'' (1947) *''Amelia's Gone'' (1951) *''The Wonder of the Wind'' (1955) *''The Lake of Souls, and other poems'' (1957) *''New and Newer Poems'' (1962) *''A Crisis at Heart'' (1970) (U.K. title: August Moon, 1971) *''Selected Poems'' (1971) *''Harold Standish: A retrospective'' (poems and essays, posthumous 1976) Fiction *''The Golden Time'' (1949) *''Blues For Loretta'' (1954) Non-fiction *''A View from the Edge'' (essays, 1971) See also *List of Canadian poets *Timeline of Canadian poetry References *McKenzie, Marwan. "'Trembling in Eden': Echoes of Kierkegaard in the Poetry of H.E. Standish." Journal of Canadian Studies 15.4 (1975): 118-36. *Scott, Douglas M. Harold Standish: A Life in Letters. Toronto: Ryerson, 1970. *Viger, Maureen, ed. Coming of Age in Canada: Poets of the Fifties. Toronto: Contact Press, 1960. *Waddington, Miriam. Introduction to The Selected Poems of Harold Standish. Ottawa: Algonquin Press, 1971. Notes External links ;Poems * Harold Standish at PoemHunter (13 poems) Category:1919 births Category:1972 deaths Category:Canadian novelists Category:Canadian modernist poets Category:Writers from Ontario Category:People from Toronto Category:Canadian poets Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets Category:Modernist poets Category:English-language poets